Strange film's purpose 'Invisible'

Published 4:00 am, Friday, January 12, 2007

�In this photo provided by The Weinstein Company, Princess Selenia (Madonna) is one of the Invisibles in "Arthur and The Invisibles." (AP Photo/The Weinstein Company)

�In this photo provided by The Weinstein Company, Princess Selenia (Madonna) is one of the Invisibles in "Arthur and The Invisibles." (AP Photo/The Weinstein Company)

Photo: Ho

Strange film's purpose 'Invisible'

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

Arthur and the Invisibles: Childrens drama. Starring Mia Farrow, Freddie Highmore and the voices of Madonna, Robert De Niro and Snoop Dogg. Directed by Luc Besson. (PG. 102 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

There are few new concepts in "Arthur and the Invisibles," but there's at least one surprise behind the scenes. The new children's film is directed by Luc Besson -- the man behind modern cult action favorites including "The Professional" and "La Femme Nikita" -- who apparently spends his spare time writing children's books about tiny troll people called Minimoys. Does this mean Beverly Cleary has a secret revenge-murder screenplay about a brooding loner who knows martial arts?

Besson is a pro when it comes to action movies, but this part live, part animation effort is a mess, highlighted by creepy animation, derivative plot points and a child star who speaks way too fast, as if he's trying to force three hours of dialogue into a 102-minute movie.

Come to think of it, everyone in this production -- director Besson, actress Mia Farrow, even the animators -- must have been shotgunning cans of Mountain Dew between each take. New characters seem to be introduced every 12 seconds, and a fight ensues every other minute, setting a pace so attention deficit-disorder-friendly that any pleasant moments are quickly trampled by the next frenetic action scene.

Freddie Highmore is Arthur, a flesh-and-blood boy who lives with his grandmother on a family homestead that is 48 hours from foreclosure. The movie is quite enjoyable in these early scenes, which are light and fun and free of excessive mayhem.

But then things get really weird. While the movie is still using live actors, Arthur runs into some African tribesmen who shrink him to the size of a sea monkey, and he's transported into an animated colony of tiny people with hair like Don King and a government that bears a resemblance to 17th century France.

Just when it seems impossible that the movie could get any stranger, you'll start recognizing the voices of the computer-animated characters -- including Robert De Niro as a king sprite, Snoop Dogg as some kind of underground bug/monkey thing and bad guy David Bowie as ... well ... it's never really clear what he is. Imagine if Jim Henson and "Alien" designer H.R. Giger spent a weekend in a landfill trying to collaborate on a puppet -- using only scraps of clothing, ripped Hefty bags and rotting food.

If that doesn't make sense, neither does much of "Arthur and the Invisibles," which appears to take place in the 1950s, yet includes a musical number that includes Bowie's 1983 hit "Let's Dance."

To be fair, it's a kids' movie, and children aren't going to know or care whether the soundtrack matches the movie's period setting. They also won't know that Snoop Dogg starred in and co-produced a piece of adult cinema called "Snoop Dogg's Hustlaz: Diary of a Pimp" -- which, while perfectly legal, should have led to a lifetime ban on participating in children's programming.

This would probably be a good place to point out that "Arthur and the Invisibles" is an appropriate movie for older kids, but earns its PG rating with scary scenes later in the movie that might frighten younger kids straight out of the theater and into a screening of "Charlotte's Web." Why not keep things simple and start there in the first place?

-- Advisory: This movie contains voice acting work by Madonna, whose character is skinnier than Kate Bosworth in "Superman Returns," dresses like a Renaissance Faire hooker and has a mid-January/December romance with a 10-year-old kid. There's also a lot of violence.

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.